Training Log Archive: Mounty

Event: Paddy Pallin Rogaine - 47th edition
 

Paddy Pallin rogaine with FatRat, Andy & Steveo. Hopefully one of them writes a report so I dont have to. Fun day out.

Damn. Outstalled by fatrat in writing a report, so here goes.

The good thing about the Paddy Pallin this year was that it was nice and close to home, with a short morning drive up to Girrakool Scout Camp at Kariong. The bad thing about the Paddy Pallin this year was that it was nice and close to home - in nice thick Sydney bush. And unfortunately the local scouts must be too well behaved to explore their inner-arsonist. Did I mention it was thick?

Reasonably quick consensus between the 4 of us on route planning - short 'Preston-Hill' loop near the start to ensure we werent breaking all the trails, long loop down to the south, then spend the time left over collecting all the tight concenration of CPs spread around the Great North Walk near the finish.

Rough expectations of how far we would get were trimmed back in the first 5 minutes when the 'track' we headed off on was probably slower going than the surrounding bush. Things improved after about 20 minutes, and the next couple of hours was running along quite nice tracks with the occasional dive in to the bush to get a cp. Navigation in a group of 4 worked well - in depth discussions analysing the socceroos chances of making it to the round of 16 interrupted occassionally by someone saying "um, i think there's a checkpoint in there". Made respectably good time down to the bottom of the map.

Then off in to the bush to collect the 100 pointers. Slow couple of hours of slog thru' crap with the occassional pretty rainforest type stuff showing up (at which point I couldnt help watching out for stinging trees). Pace got a bit ploddy through here, but no major problems navigation-wise.

Snapped out of our lethargy at about 4hrs, when we met Glenn's team who looked like they were in a hurry and being serious. Quick tribal-council meeting, and we decided to drop the remaining CP's in the crap, and head north on the trail to clean up the checkpoints around the Great North Walk.

Cranked up the pace, and found ourselves quickly in a much nicer section of bush and some fun fun trotting around the GNW. 5 minute mistake @ #45 near the river. Doh. Had considered doing the swim across the river to #39, but that idea quickly dropped due to the very unnatural lime-green colour of the water - it did not look healthy in there.

Headed back in to the bush for the last time to get #60, but after that back on tracks and relatively easy to estimate that we wouldn't need to kill ourselves to get back in time. Had been clever to do this section last, as there were nice little tracks in to the CP's from those that had gone before.

Arrived at the finish 10 minutes early, and straight in to the sausage queue. Excellent manouvre, as we sat 10 minutes later eating our sausages while the queue instantly grew to about 300 people.

Finished on 1670 points in 2nd, 50 behind first. Were 50 points within 15 minutes off the finish that we'd left out, so not far off.

Fun day out. Took quite a lot of photos on the course, but cant find the cable to download them.

C • Map? 3

U12 Softball, U7 rugby, Yum Cha, Wallabies.

Nice way to spend the ol' b'day, moving deep in to the late 30's. Gonna be knackered for the rogaine tomorrow though.

To and from work. Nice ride in at lunchtime. Less nice ride home in the evening. Cruisy all round.

Bit of a scratchy throat and feeling run down.

Planned to go for a lunchtime run, but ate Nando's chicken instead. How good is the extra hot sauce.

C • mmmmmm 1

Early start. Quite enjoyed the cold, crisp air. Even with the numb ears across Roseville Bridge.

Forgot to turn on the espresso machine when I got up, and had to leave uncaffeined. Gutted.

10 min w.u then efforts for 8,8,11 min on 4-8 min recovery.
Kirribilli lights to golf course
miller St to mowbray
bp to crown of the hill.
Riding like someone that hasn't done intervals for a long time. Col du Montpelier hurt.

Commuting lesson #352. If you take the bus to work and ride home, dont wear your big bulky leather jacket to work.

Loop in the Manly Dam neighbourhood. Not a bad loop, might make it a regular. First 5km of the Nosh, past the ol' Bluett household, across the golf course, then up the walking track thru' the middle of the Dam reserve.

Moving not too badly. Beaudiful day out there.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/36812961